TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION F. 



463 



the Society of Engineers, 355 members ; the Iron and Steel Institute, 900 mem- 

 bers ; besides the Society of Naval Architects and Telegraph Engineers. More 

 allied to art than to science is the Royal Institute of British Architects, for the 

 .advancement of civil architecture, which has now 820 fellows and associates. 

 There is the Society of Arts, ever active, promoting inventions, discoveries, and 

 other matters connected with the arts, manufactures, and commerce, having 

 also an Indian section, an African section, and a Chemical section for the discus- 

 sion of subjects connected with practical chemistry and its application to the arts 

 and manufactures. The society has now 3,686 members. The Pharmaceutical 

 Society, for the purpose of advancing chemistry and pharmacy, has 4,536 members 

 and associates ; the Institute of Actuaries, for the extension and improvement of 

 the data and methods of the science which has its origin in the application of the 

 Doctrine of Probabilities to the affairs of life, and from which the practice of life 

 insurance and the valuation of reversionary interests, deferred annuities, &c, derive 

 their principles of operation. The Institute has now 362 fellows and associates. 

 And of the same character are the Clinical Society, with 336 members; the 

 Obstetrical Society, with 738 members ; the Pathological Society, with 601 

 members ; and the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society, with 666 members. 



Applied Sciences. 



Besides these there are many scientific societies of a miscellaneous character, 

 such as the Microscopical ; the Philological, for the investigation of the structure, 

 the affinities, and the history of languages ; the Numismatic ; the Asiatic, with 320 

 members ; the Areonautic, with 81 members ; the Royal Institution, with 544 

 members ; the London Institution ; above all, the British Association for the 

 Advancement of Science, with 3,622 members, and the National Association for the 

 Promotion of Social Science, with about 700 corporate members, composed partly 

 of members already belonging to one or other of the scientific societies, and partly of 

 persons interested in scientific inquiries, though not themselves engaged in the same. 

 We should add also the Victoria Institute, or Philosophical Society of Great 

 Britain, whose object' are to investigate fully and impartially the more important 

 questions of Philosophy and Science ; but more especially those that bear upon the 

 great truths of Holy Scripture, with the view of reconciling any apparent dis- 

 crepancy between Christianity and Science; and also to consider the mutual 

 bearings of the various scientific conclusions arrived at in the several distinct 

 branches into which science is now divided, in order to get rid of contradictions 



